GRUVER - Theirs was one of countless small-town weddings last Saturday night. This one was on a cloudless early evening, a slight hint of fall in the air.

The First United Methodist Church was full with more than 200 in attendance. Most men, who make their living outdoors, were in coat and tie, and most women were in their best dresses. A mother got up to quiet her baby.

Eight bridal attendants in purple made their way down the aisle, wearing smiles and preparing no doubt for tears yet to come. Shea Lowe was radiant in her bridal dress. Her father, Bud, escorted her as he and wife Marsha gave her away to Brian Lair. Brian was the one with a smile as wide as his face, a genuine smile that seemed to never leave.

In a way, this wedding was like thousands of others in this country on the first Saturday in September. And, yet, it was like none. None at all. And that it wasn't is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, beautiful and brave.

"If someone would have told me five years ago that on the week of my wedding, I would be giving my fiance chemo, I would have not believed them," Shea said. "I would have said that I'm not going down that route. But now I wouldn't change one thing. It's perfect and the way it's supposed to be."

Her beaming husband has brain cancer. Brian was diagnosed with a brain tumor on July 23, 2008, about seven months after the two began dating long distance, and three weeks after Shea moved to Amarillo to accept a teaching position at the Woodlands Elementary to be closer to Brian.

They thought those seizures and momentary losses of memory Brian had been having a few months before might be related to some concussions when he had been on the Red River ski team for years. But tests revealed unfortunately it was not. It was a tumor, about the size of a woman's fist in the right frontal lobe.

Thus began a medical odyssey of six surgeries in Dallas, six weeks of radiation, seven months of chemotherapy and one biopsy. Shea never forsook the man she was growing to love more with each passing day.

"I couldn't have done this without her," Brian said. "Everybody is great when times are good and things are easy. But Shea has meant the world to me."

Following the last of his six surgeries in late March, Brian was wheeled in from the recovery room to his own room. Unknown to him because of a loss of peripheral vision, Shea was there in the room. She could hear Brian bragging to the nurse about his girlfriend, how she needed to meet her, about the crown of thorns ring Shea had given to him.

"He told the nurse that some days life is hard and some days are not fun, but that it's not anything Jesus hasn't done for me already," Shea said. "That was the first time he had verbalized that."

Shea had seen a deeper, stronger Brian, one more mature in his faith, one more positive about an unsure future. Brian had seen a rock, a help mate, someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He wanted to propose in that Dallas hospital room - he had already picked out a ring - but made it official on April 6 in Amarillo. Soon a date was picked - Sept. 4.

Meanwhile, the medical reports were positive. Things were looking all right. The tumor had not grown. Then in May, expecting to again hear the same encouraging news, Brian instead heard the brain tumor was now enlarged. And, like a blow to the stomach, there was another tumor as well.

A neurosurgeon ominously suggested they move the wedding date up. But, no, they would not. The wedding would proceed as scheduled.

And so on Saturday night, Jonathan Mast, on the staff at Hillside Christian in Amarillo where both go to church, conducted the wedding in the church where Shea grew up. Greg Lair, a Canyon auto dealership owner and Brian's dad, was best man.

Mast would tell the packed church it was not by chance or coincidence these two 27-year-olds were brought together, but that God brought them to this moment, to this altar, to this Saturday.

And those vows that even the best-intentioned couples sometimes gloss over were profound, especially when they took turns with this, "in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until separated by death, as God is my witness, I give you my promise."

"Love endures all things," Mast told them. "The kind of love you have is special. It's very special."

On this night in a small-town church, love and faith conquered fear, conquered the uncertainty of future tests. It has made the unbearable bearable. Love and faith wore a smile in the midst of pain. It conquered it all.

At the start of the wedding processional, pianist Kathy Gillispie and violinist Jody Wallin played, "It Is Well With My Soul." And it was well. It was very well.

Jon Mark Beilue's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at jon.beilue@amarillo.com or 806-345-3318. His blog appears on amarillo.com.